Adolpho Birch is in his third season with the Titans as Senior Vice President & Chief Legal Officer. He joined the organization in 2020 after spending 23 years at the NFL's league headquarters in New York. Birch's responsibilities with the Titans include league and legal affairs, government relations, DEI efforts, community impact and the Titans Foundation.
Since returning to Nashville, Birch has been a catalyst for enhancing the team's Community Impact footprint and reformulating the vision and reach of the Titans Foundation. He also has taken on a key role in the advancement of a re-imagined stadium and development along the city's East Bank, working with Metro Nashville and the State of Tennessee and leading stakeholder engagement efforts throughout the state.
As an advisor to Commissioners Paul Tagliabue and Roger Goodell, Birch held several senior-level roles during his time at NFL headquarters. Prior to leaving for the Titans, Birch served as the NFL's Senior Vice President of Labor Policy & League Affairs. In that capacity, he had a leading role in negotiating and enforcing critical policies affecting the integrity of the game, including those on substances of abuse, performance-enhancing drugs, gambling and personal conduct. He also advanced the NFL's legislative, political and regulatory interests on key issues such as youth concussion laws, the league's tax status and the FCC's blackout rule. In supervising the NFL's player engagement efforts, he focused on continuing education, financial education, career development and clinical assistance to support player and employee off-field success. Additionally, he served on executive working groups and cross-organizational committees including those related to sponsorship, legalized sports betting, media advertising policy and disaster relief.
Prior to his career with the NFL, Birch clerked for the Honorable Thomas A. Wiseman, Jr., Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. He then worked in private practice in Houston as an associate at Fulbright & Jaworski (now Norton Rose Fulbright) and later a labor and litigation boutique.
A Nashville native and graduate of Father Ryan High School, Birch attended Vanderbilt University Law School as a Patricia Roberts Harris Scholar, serving on the Editorial Board of the Vanderbilt Law Review and earning his juris doctorate in 1991. He did his undergraduate work at Harvard University, where he graduated with honors in government.
Birch is involved in many professional and philanthropic organizations, including the Vanderbilt University Board of Trust (Secretary); Sports Lawyers Association (Board of Directors); Partnership Tennessee; Partnership for Clean Competition (Board of Governors); and the Business of Sports School, New York City (Industry Advisory Board), and was named a Best of the Bar honoree by the Nashville Business Journal in 2021 and 2022. In May 2021, he was elected to the Board of Directors for Ingram Industries. That same month, he was elected to serve as a director for the national Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority. In January 2022, he was appointed to the Tennessee Access to Justice Commission.
His father, A.A. Birch, Jr., was the first African American Chief Justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court and became the first judge to serve at every level of the Tennessee judiciary. In 2006, the city of Nashville named its new criminal justice building after him. His mother, Dr. Janet Winifred Scott Birch, was a longtime Professor of Clinical Psychology at Meharry Medical College and active community leader.
